


A Sight to Behold

by Cryptidiot



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, But mostly fluff, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Don't Judge Me, Don't Read This, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Nico is a babey, One-Shot, TWT, and its really bad im sorry, babey - Freeform, i wrote this at 3am on my phone's Notes, lowkey angst, maybe I'll do a better quality one soon, solangelo, this is my first fic here cut me some slack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26837884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptidiot/pseuds/Cryptidiot
Summary: It's a long, grim night..A self-indulgent Solangelo one-shot.(Alternative title: Haha Sleep? Who She)
Relationships: Kayla Knowles & Will Solace, Nico di Angelo & Kayla Knowles, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	A Sight to Behold

It's a long, grim night.

Will is actually a worse sleeper than Nico is. Don't get him wrong, it's not like Nico _should_ be getting up at 3 am for an ill-timed snack or a stroll through the woods because, _quote,_ "The weather is nice."

But both of them tend to have trouble sleeping. Will is diagnosed with insomnia, which is partially because he spends a lot of his sleeping hours at people's sickbeds, tending to the wounded.

Especially during wars or battles, he would go days without sleep and sustain himself on ambrosia, nectar, coffee, and energy drinks. A potent combination that would probably kill your average horse. (But Will is a demigod, it's different.) He knows he's needed and that he's the best in the field. He's always trying to do whatever he can.

Nico hates it. As the son of Hades, he can sense when someone is on death's doorstep. He hates it so much when he sees the helpless look on Will's face when someone inevitably dies. It's like watching a plane crash with your own eyes, from start to finish, and it breaks his heart.

But he stays with Will anyway, because the absolute _least_ he can do for his boyfriend is be there for him.

Nico's also the one who's always trying to get Will to sleep, the one who brings him food and nags him into eating it (even if it's just broth, so long as he's not working on an empty stomach). And he stays there with him through the long days, _weeks_ of sleepless works, and helps around where he can.

___

It's one of those long, dreadful nights. A sizable bloodbath had gone down near the camp border, a battle out of many that were steadily growing more frequent. It's right smack in the middle of war, and campers are dying off.

And Will is working through the night again.

He notices Nico actively trying to stay alert, his head drooping every few seconds before he blinks himself awake. Will glances over, finishes bandaging the guy he's working on, and approaches the chair in the corner where Nico slumps.

"Why don't you go back to your cabin, Neeks? I'm fine here." He whispers.

Nico stirs slowly, making a noise halfway between a grunt and a moan.

"Coulda fooled me." He smiles drowsily back up at his boyfriend (Oh _gods_ Will's heart) as he shifts in his seat. "'M staying."

Will had been feeling unbelievably stressed, and even more unbelievably tired, but in that one moment all of that disappears and he just feels an overwhelming love for this boy. Because Nico could be anywhere else in the world, but he's here with him instead. Even if it exhausts him and he drops from lack of sleep, he's staying here with Will.

Will sighs and leans down, pressing a chaste kiss to the younger boy's forehead. His lips linger for perhaps longer than they need to, and Will runs a hand through Nico's silky hair before retrieving a blanket to drape over him. The boy is fast asleep before Will even gets back. 

The softest of smiles graces the blonde's face as he returns to work with a sigh, sparing a glance in the direction of Nico's sleeping form every few minutes.

And it was a sight to behold. 

His shoulders rise and fall with each slow breath, his face an expression of the blissful peace only visible when Nico's asleep like this (What in Hades did Will ever do to be blessed with this image?)

And Nico's presence calms him. He finds himself rid of the ever-so-slight tremble in his fingers from before, the desperate twitch to his hands. He's more determined, stronger somehow. He'll get through this.

He grits his teeth and ties another bandage. He makes another stitch, sutures another wound.

He works. Meticulously, deliberately, _hard._ He works for hours, until he no longer has a reckoning for what time it is, until his eyes sting and his arms ache. But the set in his jaw is still there. So he takes another swallow of nectar from the thermos Nico had brought him earlier, and continues working, hardly registering the liquid's sweet taste.

Everything other than the sick and wounded patients before him and their treatment is blocked out as white noise.

So he doesn't notice when Kayla walks into the room until she places a hand on Will's shoulder. 

"You've done enough, Will. Go take a break."

Will glances up from the wound he's dressing.

"You sure?" He mumbles back. 

"Yeah, you've been here for days. We can manage."

Kayla guides him to the table where Nico is sounds asleep. "Rest for now, we can handle it from here."

Will is only half-conscious of sitting down at the table and resting his head on his forearms.

Nico's hair is ruffled and sticking out in random directions, and Will half-smiles. The last few of his functioning braincells manage a _He's cute like this_ right before he slips into a dreamless sleep.

Minutes later, Kayla comes back to rearrange the blanket so that it covers the backs of both boys.

A few hours after that, the wounds of those in the infirmary are all tended to. Kayla and the rest of the healers leave eventually, but no one has the heart to wake the two half-bloods sleeping in the back.

___

The night is quiet at Camp Half-Blood. It's the aftermath of a battle, the calm after a storm's devastation. The dead have been counted, and the wounded have been treated. The only sound is the rustling of trees and the cricket song in the fields. 

On this night, two lone boys sleep side by side in the large but crowded infirmary.

If one walked into this scene, they might perhaps see Will stir in the flickering lamplight. They might see him groggily awaken and struggle to orient himself for a moment. They might catch him settle back down again with a sigh and slide his fingers through his boyfriend's dark bangs.

If they're lucky, they might glimpse him pecking the other boy gently on the cheek before allowing himself to slowly fall back asleep.

A sight to behold, indeed.

___

It's a long, grim night, but it's okay, because they have the comfort of each other's company even on nights like this.

**Author's Note:**

> And naturally, Will has an entire album of photos on his demigod-friendly phone dedicated to Nico sleeping.  
> Sorry this is so short, it wasn't meant to be a finished work at first ^_^'.
> 
> Honestly, I'm not sure about the timeline. I don't know what war this is, or what happened, I just kind of went along.
> 
> This fic just happened. Idk how, i just went *oops my hand slipped* and the next thing I knew it was 3 am and this was in my Notes-  
> Anyway,, comments/kudos are appreciated!


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